


Bright and Sharp

by rosymamacita



Series: Here We Are Now Entertain Us [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 03:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8829259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosymamacita/pseuds/rosymamacita
Summary: Prompt: Snowed in and stuck together.Summary: Clarke and Bellamy are waiting tables together when the city is socked in by a snow storm. There’s no way that he’s going to be able to get home to Brooklyn tonight, so Clarke invites him to stay at her place. But going home with the girl he’s been in love with for months would be the stupidest thing ever. He’s going to fight it all the way back to her place. Because he’s just that stubborn. Thanks to the good people at Bellarke.com who hosted a lovely Bellarke advent calendar of treats for us all. Find this story there on Day 2. http://bellarke.com/post/153955486655/bright-and-sharp





	

“No,” she said. Final answer.

Bellamy blinked and scrubbed at the bar sink harder, clenching his jaw. He finished and put the rag down before turning to her. “Last time I checked, you weren’t the boss of me, Clarke.”

She turned around from cleaning the cappuccino machine that had only been used to make their own hot coffee drinks, since not one customer had walked in the door of the restaurant that night. “Look at that,” she said, thrusting one angry hand out towards the picture window. The snow fell so heavily he couldn’t even see across the street. The street lamps dyed it a peachy yellow. It was really beautiful. It may have been a waste of his time to come into work today, but for some reason, he couldn’t regret it. “You are NOT walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and all the way out to Park Slope. It’s just stupid.”

He rolled his eyes and went back to cleaning out the beer fridge. “Not sure what you expect me to do, then. They’ve closed down the subways and I’m certainly not going to be able to catch a taxi. If a taxi can even get through that. It’s, like, three feet of snow.”

She, of course, had to top him, as she had to top him with everything, whether it was getting the best tips to put in the tip jar or finishing set-up first or making the prettiest presentation of the flourless chocolate cake. She blinked so slowly it must have hurt, let her head loll on her neck and then rolled her eyes. She was so competitive he didn’t know whether to throttle her or laugh. “You’re always so dramatic, Bellamy. It’s not three feet.”

“Well it will be by morning,” Bellamy said, letting the drama comment slide because he was reasonable and not half as dramatic as her. He dumped the ice down the sink.

“And that’s just another reason why you’re not going to Brooklyn tonight in a blizzard that won’t stop. You’re coming home with me.”

Bellamy choked, and covered it with a scoffing laugh. “Excuse me, princess?”

“I live a ten minute walk across town, not however many hours it will take you to get home, along with the pneumonia you’re going to catch.”

“You know as well as I do that you don’t catch pneumonia from snow, miss medical school.”

She pursed her lips. “That’s miss medical school drop-out, thank you very much. And my mom may have stopped supporting me after dropping out, but she did buy me a very nice little one bedroom apartment in Nolita, and I have a couch.”

“Nolita. Isn’t that where all the models live? Aren’t you fancy.”

“No. I’m lucky. Come on Bellamy. Don’t be ridiculous and stubborn, although I know you will be. There is no way you can keep yourself from fighting with me.”

She stood right up close to him, her jaw thrust forward pugnaciously, like a challenge. He glared down at her with his arms crossed. He wanted to fight with her so bad, argue about it being a bad idea and how she was not his boss and he didn’t need her.

He glared at her harder. He wasn’t ridiculous and stubborn. He was perfectly reasonable. And he could so resist fighting her. “It is a dumb ideas,” he said and she took a breath to refute him,“but okay. I’ll crash on your couch.”

Her stubborn glower transformed into this brilliant, wide smile that lit up every corner of the empty restaurant. And then he remembered why it was such a bad idea to go home with her.

Because the truth was, he didn’t want to fight with her, he wanted to push her up against a wall and kiss her senseless.

“That’s it!” Kane, the chef, called from the kitchen, where he’d been working his way through a bottle of house white, waiting for a customer, any customer. But not one had come in all night. No walk ins, no reservations, and not that big table that was supposed to be having a Christmas party, either. “I’m calling it. Close up and go home.” He was the chef and owner, and he was the one who had the say. He’d already let the dishwasher go an hour ago, back when his friends had come by with a ride home, before the streets had become impassable. So it was just the two of them and Kane left.

Clarke’s grin only grew wider as she threw her hands up in the air. “Yay!” Fuck she was gorgeous. But she had a girlfriend.

“What are you so happy about? We still have to trudge half way cross town in the snow,” he grumbled, not liking what his heart was doing at all. At all.

“Snow day, Bellamy. Snow day. It’s the best.” And then she skipped to the other side of the little restaurant to put the chairs up. It was tiny. They closed up in record time, and before they left, Kane handed them eighty dollars each, muttering about forfeited deposits for parties who didn’t show, and then he locked the door behind them and stumbled down the block to his brownstone.

Bellamy watched him go. It’s not that he was all that drunk, but a slow day like they’d had and the wine and the cold and who knew what was under the snow. He didn’t want Kane to fall or stumble in the cold. But Kane didn’t, he got to his stoop and let himself into his house.

He turned see Clarke staring at him, her hat pulled down over her ears and her scarf pulled up to her chin, a smile on her face. “You think he got home okay, Bellamy? Should we go check that he made it up the stairs all right?”

Bellamy pulled his hood up over his head. “Shut up. I’m just making sure.”

“You know, he’s not actually that old and delicate, right? He’s perfectly able to walk down the street in the snow.” She knocked her hip into his. “You’re such a dad.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Clarke. Are we going to stand here chit chatting all day, or are we going to trudge all the way across town in the six foot snow?”

Clarke threw her head back and laughed like pealing bells and the snowflakes caught in her eyelashes like stars. Bellamy knew he was well and truly fucked and this was the worst idea he had ever had in his life, but she tucked her arm through his and they set off cross town.

This new snow day Clarke was an entirely different thing. She laughed and caught snowflakes on her tongue and threw snowballs at him.

Where was the serious girl who fought with him over the best way to foam milk or to stand up to obnoxious bigots? She was a rich, white girl from the Upper East Side, and he was a mixed race son of a single mom from the dirty streets of Queens, and they came at things from the complete opposite direction and it infuriated him that he liked her so much.

But then there were those slow days when they talked about books and movies and the best museums. He was a wannabe novelist who could never even afford college, just trying to pay the rent with his tips and she was a slumming princess who gave up medical school to play around with being a painter. He shouldn’t like her at all. And he’d tried to focus on all their differences, but it didn’t stop him from falling in love with her harder every time they argued.

He looked up all of a sudden and realized that she had walked off ahead of him, so lost was he in his head. “Hey! Where are you going?” he asked, feeling like she was getting away from him or something.

She turned around and smiled at him, her arms outspread. Everything was blanketed in white. All the dirt and cement and brick was white. The air was orange with diffused light and the snow filtering down on her softened everything in cast her in a halo. She looked like an angel.

“I’m breaking the snow for you to make it easier to trudge across town,” she laughed.

“What the hell?” He hurried to catch up with her. “I’m like a foot taller than you. If anyone is going to break the snow it’s going to be me.” He reached her and she punched him softly in the chest with her mittened fist, and it was definitely a blow to his heart. He wanted to grab her hand and kiss the snowflakes from her cheeks. He swallowed and pushed past her, stumbling to get in front of her.

“You’re, like six inches taller than me, tops, Bellamy.”

“Six and a half,” he grumbled and stomped through the snow, trying to knock her out of his head with every snow drift he kicked through. He lost track of time.

“Hey Bellamy!” she sing-songed from behind him.

“What the?” he said and trudged back to her. “Why did you stop?”

“We’re here?” Bellamy looked around him. It was a small, quiet street, not fancy at all, rows of tenements, snow covered trash cans, little shops, half the storefronts empty. She nodded and unlocked the front door, leading him into the old building and up the stairs.

“I thought you said your mom bought you a nice apartment, Clarke. This place is a dump. I could afford an apartment here.”

“Okay, well, she bought the building. She said it’s an investment in gentrifying neighborhood. I talked her into letting me take one of the apartments.”

She shook his head, staring at the cracked marble and old tile as he climbed the stairs.

“What?” she said.

“I don’t understand you Clarke. You could have so much better than this, but you’re just slumming.”

He caught the wince of pain on her face before she pulled off her hat and let her blonde hair fall to cover her face. She stuck her key in the lock of a battered steel door with a little snowman magnet on it. She shrugged. “I didn’t want to have something I didn’t deserve, that’s all…”

He could hear the hurt in her voice but he was an asshole and he thought maybe he wanted to hurt himself, too. “So you’re saying I deserve to be poor.”

Her head whipped around and she snapped, “no!” Her lips parted, gasping just a little. It was probably the hike across town and up four flights. Probably.

He could scarcely catch his breath, either. And his heart was beating too fast. Why the fuck had he come? Why the fuck had he thought— “Fuck this is such a bad idea,” he said.

“Shut up, you dick,” she growled, and there was the Clarke he knew. The one he knew how to act around. The one he could fight with and push. The one who would push back. It was better this way. He swallowed hard. “Get inside and crash on the couch and don’t be an ungrateful prick.”

She held the door open for him. He nodded, tight lipped. “Fair enough,” he said and she narrowed her eyes at him as he passed. If she took it as an apology it was because she was a better person than he was.

He passed through a narrow hallway into a small living area. The walls were painted a warm golden color and hung with vibrant paintings that made him think of summer and shadows and that moment between waking and sleeping. The furniture was all old and worn, covered with throws and pillows and there were books everywhere, and interesting things stuck into the shelves and on the little side tables. He wanted to drink it all in.

“Don’t just stand there, Bellamy. Hang your coat up before you melt snow all over the rug, huh?”

He shook his head, a little stunned. Coming into Clarke’s home was like stepping into her head, into her heart. He felt like an intruder, like he shouldn’t be here wanting to settle in as if it was his own. He took off his coat and hung it on the hook in the hallway, and toed off his boots, setting them next to hers on the floor, there.

He followed her into the living room as she flopped down on the couch. He leaned into the other corner and she clicked on the National Geographic channel. He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “This is your favorite channel, right?” He nodded, not really able to answer right then. She smiled and stood up. “Good. Want some hot chocolate to warm up?”

“Hot chocolate?” he asked, his voice was tight in his throat.

“Don’t worry tough guy, I’ll adult it up with some whiskey. We could use it after the winter wonderland, huh?”

“Yeah,” he laughed, and she beamed back at him before turning to the little kitchenette fussing with the jars and bottles and pans. He realized he was staring, so he turned back to examining the room.

“I like your place,” he said.

“Oh, ha ha, very funny. I know it’s old and tattered and full of too much crap and slumming.”

“No,” he said, not really knowing how to apologize for that comment from before. For their whole relationship, actually. “No, I mean it. I like it. It’s so warm and interesting and full. I can see all your colors.”

She turned fully around from the stove and blinked at him. “Really?” like she was astonished.

“Yeah,” he breathed. Fuck.

“Oh,” she said so quietly he barely even heard. Then she was back, with an enamel tray, two mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of delicate cookies dusted with powdered sugar. They looked home made.

“Cookies, Clarke?” he questioned.

“I said don’t be prick, Bellamy. Drink your hot chocolate and eat your cookies and be grateful,” but she had a smile on her face and her cheeks were pink. He watched her as she took a sip of the hot chocolate, her eyes turned to the show. It was about the Galapagos which he loved, but he watched her until he realized he was fighting the urge to reach out and slide his hand through her tangled blonde hair and kiss her lips until they were swollen.

He reached for the hot chocolate, instead. It was sweet and rich and strong. The whiskey warmed him as it went down, and the whipped cream on top was hand whipped, with shaved chocolate dusting it. She was such an over achiever. She couldn’t just spray whipped cream out of a can. He snickered into his cocoa.

“What?” she asked, slightly suspiciously.

He shook his head and grinned. “It’s good Clarke, thanks.”

She turned and her blue eyes twinkled at him. They were deep twilight blue in the warm light of her room, but he knew that they were a bright sky color in the day. He shook his head again. “Watch your show, the tortoises are coming.”

She smiled again. “I love the tortoises,” she said and folded her legs up underneath her.

“I know,” he said. They’d talked about it. They’d talked a lot about everything, he realized. And now he knew he wanted to know more.

“Is this your art?” he asked, nodding at the paintings on the walls.

She looked up and nodded, then cocked her head at him, as if waiting for his criticism.

“I like them a lot. They make me feel things,” he said. And then swallowed. Fuck. Why did he say that?

She leaned towards him just a little bit. “What kind of things?” she asked softly.

He huffed a laugh. “I don’t know. Things,” trying to brush it off. “Look Clarke, that tortoise is over a hundred and twenty years.” Clarke turned to look at got wrapped up in the show again, but he saw her peeking at him time and again, out of the corner of his eye, as if she was trying to figure him out.

“So how’s your girlfriend,” he asked, his eyes trained on the tortoises. He needed to talk about her girlfriend so he could remind himself that he couldn’t kiss her the way he wanted to.

The tortoises were laying eggs, maybe that was why he didn’t realize how long the silence stretched before he turned to look at her, to find her staring with narrowed eyes.

“That bad?” he asked.

“We broke up, Bellamy.”

“What? I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You talk about her all the time.”

Her eyebrows drew together slowly and a delicate wrinkle formed between them. She shook her head. “I haven’t talked about her in months. We broke up in September.”

He blinked, tortoises forgotten, trying to remember the last time she’d spent a slow shift gushing about how awesome Lexa was, about how they were meant to be, kindred souls, and how he would tease her about how awful she sounded, so she could come back with yet another perfect Lexa story, the knife in his gut twisting. All summer long. And his slow dawning realization that he was in love with her.

All summer? No not all summer. When had it stopped. He never even noticed that their fights had been over politics, or dumb movies, or their respective relatives or… everything else but her girlfriend. He’d been the one to keep reminding himself of the girlfriend. But she really hadn’t.

“What happened?” he asked, he couldn’t help it.

She snorted. “Well, it turned out we had different interests. She was interested in me and I…” her words trailed off and she set her hot chocolate down on the enamel tray.

“I’m sorry. I’m being nosy,” he said, draining his cup to get the last of that whiskey, and cursing himself for bringing up her painful memories. “It’s just you usually complain about all the shit and you didn’t say anything about breaking up. I guess there was a reason. You don’t have to tell me.” He put his cup next to hers.

Clarke lifted herself up and settled farther back into the couch so she could turn to look at him more fully, a look on her face that he couldn’t decipher. Annoyance, anger, frustration? He was an idiot. She’d probably kick him out and make him walk to Brooklyn in the snow now and it turned out he really didn’t want to go. “I didn’t mean to,” he apologized.

Clarke rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “Bellamy, We had different interests. As Lexa pointed out to me, I did nothing but talk about Bellamy Blake.” Bellamy blinked. Her eyebrows rose half way up her forehead and she looked up at him through those long dark lashes, blue eyes luminous. “She was interested in me, but I was interested in you,” she said, nodding slowly. “That’s why we broke up. Bellamy this and Bellamy that, I wouldn’t shut up. Lexa figured it out first. She’s the one who told me.”

He saw her swallow heavily. He could only stare. He thought maybe his heart had stopped entirely.

“She told me I was in love with you.” She laughed, “And I argued with her. I told her all the reasons why that was ridiculous, but she didn’t argue back like you would have. She didn’t put up a fight or challenge me. She just looked at me the way she always did, so cool and confident, sure she was right, and she convinced me. I am in love with you.”

The nervous ramble stopped then and she looked at him silently, her eyes big, frightened tears starting in the corner. She swallowed again. Laughed again and then nodded rapidly. “Right. I’m sorry. What the fuck was I thinking? You can have the couch. I’ll get you the blankets and sheets and you can just crash. I’ll go read in my room and I won’t bother you. Anything you want in the kitchen just go ahead, okay? I trust you. Sorry.” She jumped up from the couch and stepped over his knees ready to make her escape before his brain caught up with his body.

He reached out to grab her wrist and pulled her back towards him. She landed in his lap and he held onto her hip to steady her. She gasped.

“Where are you going?” he asked, his voice hoarse with everything he’d been holding in all night.

“I was—“ she started, “You didn’t say anything…”

He reached out to run his fingers through her tangled hair. “Give me a minute before you run away, why don’t you?”

Her breath was shaky, but she stayed on his lap, with his hand heavy on her hip, waiting.

Her hair was so soft, the skin on her neck was like silk as he ran his fingertips down it to her collar bone. He felt her whole body shiver. She brought her hand up to rest right above his heart and he wondered if she could feel how fast it was beating.

“Okay,” she said, quietly, staring down at her own hand on his chest. She flexed her fingers against him. “You have a minute,” and her eyes snapped up to his, challenging. They were full. Full of questions and fears and hopes and he fought himself to get all his thoughts aligned.

“I want you to bother me, Clarke,” he choked out. He didn’t care if she could hear his feelings in his voice. He wanted her to. “You bother me all the time,” he ran his hand down her arm and linked his fingers in hers. She held on. Watched his mouth as he spoke. “You drive me crazy.”

She leaned forward and kissed him quick, pulling back before he could do more than gasp in relief. “I thought you had a girlfriend, Clarke. I thought you were in love, and it was killing me.”

“I am in love,” she said, and he drew her towards him, capturing her lips with his, kissing her the way he’d been imagining all this time.

She did not melt into him. She fought him the whole way, nipping at the corner of his mouth, pulling away and making him chase her, devouring him, tangling her tongue with his until he was panting, until they both were. Just like always, they were back and forth, bright and sharp, hot and all in, everything, all of them, together.

He pulled back just enough to let out a shaky breath. “I love you.”

She laughed against his lips.

“Good.”


End file.
